Page 5 of Barefoot Dreams
“You are just proving my point at this point. She is weird! And what’s with all the smiling like an idiot? It’s not natural! Did Cal push her very hard when she was a baby or something and now her face is stuck on that expression?”
“Oh my God, Kimmy, stop.”
“What? I’m not saying anything that isn’t being said already. Even you think she’s weird.”
“I didn’t say weird, just different.”
“Um, this is not the good kind of different. It’s the kind the rest of the world would recommend she see a psychiatrist for, but because we live in this hippy town, they condone it. God, and I’m not even going to start on her appearance.” Kimmy groaned like my looks or clothes or whatever it was she meant offended her personally.
I frowned, looking down at myself. This was my favorite skirt, and these flower patterns I painted on my arms with Henna were so cute. What was so wrong about me? Why was it unnatural to smile?
Why did everyone keep making fun of me for being who I am, yet none of them ever explained why it was so wrong to be me? Why did I have to look and dress like they did? I was my own person.
“Can we change the subject? I get it, you don’t like Julie.”
“Baby, it’s not about liking her. I think someone should help the girl. I mean, you know how hard it is for her in high school! Who’s ever going to date her? Just a loner for life.”
I frowned. I didn’t understand what she meant. Why did I need a boyfriend to not feel alone? That seemed like such a strange suggestion, as if without one you’re somehow lacking? As if having one makes you better?
I never thought dating Griffin would somehow up my status or fill the silence around me. I wanted him in my life to enjoy it together. Silence included.
“There must be someone who will like her the way she is with her handmade clothes, bare feet, and wild, untamed hair. Let her be.”
Handmade clothes, bare feet, and wild, untamed hair… That’s…that’s all he saw about me…
How could I be so naïve?
Maybe everything people say about me is true after all? Maybe I am the local red basket case as some call me. I just never thought Griffin would think the same. Never.
“Why are you protecting her so much? Do you like her something? Do you have a secret crush on the child of the wild? I’m pretty sureshe’sin love withyou.”
“What?” Griffin screeched as he laughed, but it wasn’t one of his booming laughs. The ones that shook the whole world around him. It was hollow, like he couldn’t care any less. “Oh my God, are you crazy? She’s just Callum’s little sister, so I can’t be walking around bashing her like that.”
“So you’d never date a girl like that?”
“What’s with these weird questions? Can we drop the subject?”
“Oh, don’t get all defensive.” Kimmy giggled. “I’m just kidding. I know you’re not into red heads. Only blondes,” she adds, her tone playful, her mood bright and cheery as she planted a loud kiss on him.
But mine, for once, felt tainted and dirty.
That last shred of hope I was clinging onto shattered as the road I was on cracked, splintered, and eventually dropped, leaving a gap so big there was no point repairing it.
The small packets of cosmos seeds—yellow, like the speckles in his eyes—dropped from my hands at the same time as the tears did from my eyes…and I ran.
1
Griffin
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” – Alfred Tennyson
Present
“We are about ten minutes out. Restless Timon, do you copy?” I asked, steering my aircraft above the mountain peaks.
“That I do, my dear Bleeding Heart,” Caleb replied.
“Remind me, why did I allow you to create my code name?”
